In adolescents with anxiety disorders, viewing neutral faces in the context of anxiety-provoking situations - one where they were about to be judged by their peers - led to heightened activation in the medial prefrontal cortex.

Lithium has differing effects between individuals being treated for depression. The biological basis for this difference has now been shown at the genetic level, with non-responders showing different levels of gene activation- most notably in genes associated with apoptosis.

FMRI imaging has been used to identify a relationship between stress and threat and reward neurocircuitry. Problem drinking in association with stressful life events is only likely to develop in individuals with both highly reactive reward circuitry (i.e. ventral striatum), and hypo-reactive threat circuitry (i.e. amygdala).
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